Newsletter Vol. 3 # 73 – September 1, 2008

Greetings

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #73 of Guitar Noise News!

In This Issue:

Greetings, News and Announcements
New Lessons and Articles
Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow
Podcast Postings
GN Community Close Up
Reviews
Random Thoughts

Greetings, News And Announcements

Hello and welcome to the September 1, 2008 edition of Guitar Noise News, the twice-monthly newsletter from Guitar Noise (www.guitarnoise.com on your computer, in case you didn’t know). Normally, this would be the section of the newsletter where I’d say hi and then mention something about how time seems to be flying by, especially since it’s the first of September and another change of season is looming in the horizon.

But you’re probably somewhat tired of that by now, so let’s delve into some news from around the Guitar Noise community.

First off, we are all thrilled to announce two big events taking place in the lives of two of our contributing writers. If you’ve been to the “News” section of the Guitar Noise Forums of late, you may have read that Tom (“Noteboat”) Serb has opened a music school these past two weeks. If you live in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago (Aurora-ish), then you might be interested in checking out the Midwest Music Academy:

Midwest Music Academy, Inc.
23162 W Lincoln Hwy
Plainfield IL 60586
1-815-254-2778

Tom and his team of teachers will be offering courses in guitar (of course), with teachers specializing in rock, blues, classical and jazz. You’ll also find a chance to take lessons in piano, voice, violin, trumpet, trombone, French horn, tuba, flute, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, and oboe. He’s assembled a terrific staff – their average teacher has a Music Degree with twenty years of teaching experience; half their teachers have Master’s Degrees.

They’ve got a website, http://www.mwmusicacademy.com/, which Tom says will be getting a major overhaul in the near future, but it certainly can answer any number of questions you might have.

So the next time you’re on the Forum, pop by this thread:

https://www.guitarnoise.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=41086

and give Tom a hello and a congratulations! He’ll be happy to hear from you.

And we’ve got another “Tom” to talk about! Tom Hess, a frequent contributing writer to both Guitar Noise and Music Careers (www.musiccareers.net), not to mention guitarist for HolyHell and mentor of many guitarists around the world, will be participating in a series of guitar clinics being held between now and the middle of September.

These two-hour workshops are open to the public and it’s a great way to learn some fun guitar techniques and talk with pros in a small, intimate environment. Plus, these sort of events are usually a lot of fun!

Dates, locations and times are as follows:

September 7 JC’s Guitars - Algonquin, Illinois, 3pm
September 8 Guitar Center – Arlington Heights, Illinois, 7pm
September 9 Guitar Center – Grand Rapids, Michigan, 7pm
September 10 Guitar Center – Indianapolis, Indiana, 7pm
September 11 Guitar Center – Florence, Kentucky, 7pm
September 12 Guitar Center – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 7pm
September 13 McNeil Music – Vestal, New York, 5:30pm

You’ll also find a note about this on the “News” page of the Guitar Noise Forums:

https://www.guitarnoise.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=41285

Okay, now let’s take a quick look at what else is new at Guitar Noise since we’ve last chatted:

New Lessons And Articles

Play A Jazz Chord Melody using a Guitar Pick
by Peter Simms

This an intermediate level lesson for those of you who use only a guitar pick and would rather not work on finger-style playing, but would still like to play a complete song arrangement on your instrument. So here is the classic jazz standard, “Autumn Leaves,” from Peter to you.

The Major And The Minor
Turning Scales into Solos (Part 3)
by David Hodge

While it’s vital to use a chord progression to help you decide on a scale, knowing the style or feel of both a song and a scale is just as important. This lesson focuses on the minor pentatonic scale and why it is used so much for blues (and other genres) in major keys.

Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow

A Helpful Chart

If you’re more comfortable thinking with fret numbers than note names, the chart in this tip will help. Use it the next time you learn a tune’s chords from sheet music.

Here’s how to use the chart. You pick off two chords from the sheet music. Let’s say the chords are C major and A minor. Find the distance in frets between those two roots in the chart that follows. Then, you can write on your sheet music, in between the C major and A minor chords, the number of frets between the two chords.

By doing this, you don’t have to play C major and A minor. Instead of C, play any major chord, and follow it with a minor chord whose root is 9 frets up. Or, instead of going up 9 frets, you can go down 3 frets. The chart shows how to go _up_ from one root to another; to go down to the next root, subtract from 12 the number you pulled from the chart. In our example, C goes 9 frets up to A, and 12 minus 9 equals 3 frets to go down to A.

Remember that going up or down a certain number of frets can mean traveling along a single string, but often involves moving from one string to another. For example, going from string 2, fret 5 down three frets can mean going to string 2, fret 2, or instead to string 3, fret 6. If this is mysterious to you, take the time to learn how intervals are laid out on the guitar.

Here’s the chart:

http://www.MaximumMusician.com/graphics/rootsTable.jpg

Thanks for reading.

Darrin Koltow

Emails? We Get Emails!

As tends to happen whenever I get away from the computer for a while (whether that “while” be two weeks or two hours!), the email starts piling up. Owing to my recent travels, I am a bit behind, but slowly catching up. So if you’ve written me recently, please be patient or just write me again!

Here’s something that came almost immediately after I left for Illinois. Less than four hours, in fact!

David:
I read you avidly and appreciate your common sense. Would you care to conjecture on the relative merits of spruce versus cedar for a guitar top? I am contemplating buying a Lukas Brunner Outdoor Guitar. Check out www.brunner-guitars.com if you haven’t heard of these innovative folding instruments. I have heard Roy Bookbinder play his and it sounds BIG! He plays a lot of rags and Gary Davis changes and that little box puts out great sounds, even on the low end. But they are costly… Brunner offers spruce or cedar top for that price and I am trying to find out what folks think of the choice.

Thank you for writing and my apologies for not replying sooner. I’ve just gotten back from two weeks away from the computer and have only started getting (slightly) caught up with all the email that’s been piling up since leaving.

Spruce and cedar are the two most popular choice of wood for solid-top guitar. Tradition has is that guitarists who primarily play finger-style find that cedar has a bit more distinct tone, although some call it mellower than spruce. Many people, though, can’t hear the difference. And that really doesn’t matter. If you are stuck on choosing, the best thing to do is to have someone else play both types of tops while you look the other way and see which one you prefer. This can be with any guitars by the way, not just the Brunner. The point is for you to find whether or not the choice of top makes a difference to you.

Two other things to keep in mind: First, cedar is softer than spruce and tends to scratch more. So if you’re a wild guy with the pick, understand that your guitar is probably going to look more worn with a cedar top than a spruce one. Second, the top, while being the most important part of the sound, is only part of the equation. Different backs and sides, in combination with the top, will also produce different sounds. As will the basic shape of the guitar (dreadnaught, classical, auditorium, etc.,). So you need to take all that into account.

The “blind hearing test” that I mentioned above, where you have someone else play a number of guitars, is probably the best way for you to get acclimated to the various sounds different guitars can produce. The important thing about doing this sort of test is to have whoever’s playing play at the same level you play at. If he or she is a lot better, then you’re going to focus on what’s being played as opposed to the sound. So if you’re a beginner who just plays chords, have the tester play the same way. Only after you’ve made your choice, let the person go wild on the guitar.

I hope this helps. Thank you once more for the email and also for your patience in getting a response.

I look forward to chatting with you again.

Peace

Podcast Postings

It’s one of those times where we’ve got a “two-for-one” Podcast Posting, owing to the way the calendar happened to work out! So we’ve a Guitar Noise podcast from two weeks ago:

Guitar Noise Podcast #15 – Mixing Strumming and Crosspicking

Guitar Noise Podcast #15 takes up right on the heels of #14 – we’ll still be using “Handsome Molly” as an exercise to incorporate the various lessons we’ve picked up in our podcasts thus far. The emphasis here will be on combining measures (or half measures) of strumming with measures (or half measures) of crosspicking. Plus, we’ll add a couple of riffs to make the change from our G to D chord a little more interesting.

And one from today:

Guitar Noise Podcast #16 – Streets of Laredo

We’ll continue with our “using the stuff we’ve learned so far” by looking at “Streets of Laredo,” a traditional song that some of you may recognize from Johnny Cash’s “American Recordings IV.”

In this, our sixteenth Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll start with a basic “bass / strum” in 3/4 timing and then add some fancier work to both the bass and the strumming.

GN Community Close Up

Okay, this idea has taken way, way to long a time to take shape. But I’m glad that it’s finally making a step from “idea” to “debut.” Maybe with some more time and effort (and a lot of good old fashioned luck), it will become a semi-regular feature here at Guitar Noise News.

The premise is that we at Guitar Noise are an international community, made up of members of all sorts of guitarists, from absolute beginners to hobbyists to professionals and teachers. Besides being guitarists, we’re also all sorts of people. And I’d like to give you all a chance to get to know each other a little better. So I’m hoping that at least one a month, we’ll be able to present a short Q & A with a selected member of the Guitar Noise community.

Since we’re already celebrating the opening of Tom Serb’s Midwest Music Academy, it just made sense to kick this feature off with a short “interview” with Tom.

Tom, as most of you already know, hails from the far southwestern suburbs of Chicago. To get things started, we begin with a few basic questions and then move onto the “real interview:”

GN: Occupation?
TS: I define myself as a musician. Since I’m not a “star”, that means I have to do a whole lot of things to pay the mortgage, but they’re all music related: I’m a guitarist, guitar teacher, composer, arranger, I do transcriptions, I buy and sell gear, I write lessons for magazines, I own a music school, etc. I guess I’m a musical entrepreneur by default.

GN: Playing music since?
TS: I honestly don’t remember. I’ve always been drawn to music, and remember playing instruments (or at least playing “at” playing instruments) since I was 4. Since I don’t remember anything before that, I guess I’ve always been doing it.

GN: Playing guitar since?
TS: Since the early 1970s. It’s hard to fix an exact date… partly because those were the 1970s! I’ve been performing as a guitarist since 1976, and teaching professionally since 1978.

GN: If possible, can you remember what first brought you to Guitar Noise and why you continue to hang around?
TS: I stumbled across Guitar Noise while surfing for guitar websites. I’ve stayed because it’s a friendly place to hang out!

GN: Can you give us a brief history of your musical life?
TS: Wow! No way I can be brief about that without missing a lot…
I’m the oldest child, and my parents weren’t very musical. But even though I didn’t have any musical role models, I was always drawn to music. My mother tells me as an infant I’d wiggle around to the music whenever she played a Louis Armstrong record.
I was always messing around with musical things. On Sundays we’d go to my grandparent’s house for dinner, and my grandmother had a piano. I remember a book she had called “Songs Children Love to Play”, which had a diagram of the keyboard on the inside cover, with dotted lines showing the notes on the staff. I’d flip back and forth between that and pieces in the book, and basically taught myself how to read music – I was probably 6 or 7 then.

My first real music lessons were on drums – I bought myself a drum set with money I’d saved from my paper route. I played percussion all the way through high school and college, performing in the HS marching and concert bands, and in the college jazz band. I don’t really keep it up today, but every once in a while I’ll play tympani with a local community orchestra.

I messed around with every instrument I could get my hands on. My first guitar was one my mother bought for my father… he never learned to play, and gave it to my sister… who never learned to play, so I swiped it and learned. I still have that guitar, too – a 1962 Harmony!

In college I had some awesome teachers. My favorite was Dr. Hans Gross, my theory teacher – he really got me into the structural beauty of music, and had a way of presenting music history that was just fascinating.

Anyway, at that point I decided music was it for me, career-wise. While I was still in school I got a job teaching percussion at Morse Avenue Music in Chicago, and quickly became their only guitar teacher as well – because even though I considered the guitar my “second” instrument at that point, it turned out I was a lot better at it than the guy they had teaching. In less than a year I had a full load of guitar students, and I stopped teaching percussion.

In the late 70s I did only performing and teaching. But the disco era killed off the venues; I went from performing six nights a week to just one or two – so I started doing other things: film scoring, record production, owning a music store, etc. From then to now, I’ve done whatever I’ve had to that kept me in music – the most recent stuff is in the “occupation” question above!

I try to keep learning, too. I recently spent about five years studying classical piano with Joe Cech. I’m in awe of him – he taught me more about score reading and musical interpretation than I’d learned from anyone, ever.

GN: Of course, the big news is the opening of your music school, the Midwest Music Academy in Plainfield, Illinois. How did you come about making this decision and what have been the highs and lows about getting things together for opening this fall?
TS: I realized pretty early on that you can’t make it in the music business until you approach it as a business! Some years ago I took a hard look at the business strategy I was using as a guitar teacher, and I decided to diversify geographically. In my experience it’s pretty easy to go from 10 to 20 students, but really hard to go from 50 to 60 – so I decided I’d try teaching from three locations, and see what happened. Initially I chose Woodridge (where I live), Naperville about 15 miles to the NW, and Western Springs about the same distance to the East. Western Springs didn’t pan out as well as I’d hoped, so about three years ago I tried going South to Plainfield.

My Plainfield roster grew rapidly. I ended up dropping Woodridge to spend more time there, and had a solid waiting list – so I started to look at the demographic projections, and they looked really strong for growth. I did a lot of soul searching, and spent a lot of time talking things over with my family and friends, and decided this is probably the place for me to be.

First I tried buying a place… and I came really close to making a deal on one. But when the seller backed out, I decided I’d better just start my own.
The highs and lows have been pretty incredible. The lowest spots have been realizing just how much money it’s taking to do it right – and the red tape! For example, Plainfield is in the process of re-numbering their streets… and every government agency I’ve talked to seems to have a different idea of what my address should be! (I’ve actually gotten FIVE different opinions!)

The high spot is definitely the reaction of the students and parents. I think everybody who’s walked through the door has told me how nice the place looks, how nice the gear is, how much they like the way I’m doing things, even how nice the place smells!

GN: After all the years you’ve spent as a teacher, what are some of the biggest challenges of your new position? And what have you looked for in choosing teachers to work at your school?
TS: I think the biggest challenge for me is moving from teaching directly to teaching through others. Because I’ve spent so much time in the teacher’s chair, I know what’s important to the teachers, and I’m trying to provide everything they need to excel. But I’ve also got more years teaching than almost any of my staff – and I know what works.
But right there is the crux of it – I know what works for me in communicating with students, but I’m not the other teachers. They have things that work for them. So the real puzzle is figuring out what I should coach, and what I shouldn’t. I want things to be consistently excellent for our students, but it’s not “best practice” just because I do it. Ideally I’ll be learning as much from them as they learn from me, and we’ll be the best in the business because of it.

So that’s driving how I’m choosing teachers. When I grew up, the corner barbershop had two barbers. My father told me to always pick the barber with the worst haircut. Why? “Because they probably cut each other’s hair.” And that’s been in the back of my mind since I started recruiting: I don’t care how well they play; I don’t care how well they communicate with me; I want to hear their students play – that’ll tell me what kind of “haircut” they can give!

Just yesterday a teacher came up to me and told me he wasn’t sure about the vocal teacher I’ve got starting next week – he doesn’t think he’s a very good singer. I sort of agree – and I think the teacher making the comment (who’s a guitar teacher) is a better singer than the vocal teacher. But I’ve heard some of the vocal teacher’s long-time students sing, and I know he’s top-notch.

GN: Many Guitar Noise readers regard you as the “guru of music theory.” And your first book, Music Theory for Guitarists, certainly bears that out. Any plans for more writing in the near future?
TS: I’ve got a few writing projects in the works right now, but for the last several months my writing has been on hold – starting the school has taken too much time! But I hope to get back to it sometime next year. There’s a sequel on harmony in the works, a second edition of the theory book, and a couple of projects to be revealed later!

GN: You’ve certainly worn a lot of musical hats. And you’ve certainly gotten this question hundreds of times, but I have to ask anyway! What advice do you have for someone wanting to make a life’s career in music? Not necessarily as an “A List” performer, but simply to have a life doing something one loves?
TS: A month ago I had breakfast with a pretty successful songwriter. He told me that his musical success really started once he realized everybody was a commodity – you can replace a guitar player (or songwriter, or anybody else) with one or two phone calls if you need to.

Once you face up to that fact, you realize that the music business – or any business, really – is about building and maintaining relationships. So if you want to succeed, you don’t have to be the “best” – sure you have to be “good enough”, and you have to get your foot in the door for your first opportunity, but after that… you have to be the one they’re not looking to replace.

That means paying attention to the little details, the non-musical stuff. It’s important: show up on time. Do what you say you’ll do. Be friendly. Smile. Remember people’s names. Don’t argue. Be confident – but don’t be a prima donna. Follow up – but don’t be a pest. Treat everybody with respect. It really boils down to the golden rule.
None of it is hard to do, but for some reason many musicians don’t do them, or don’t do them enough of the time. But I’ve found that if you do them as much as you possibly can, and meet as many people as you possibly can, success will find you.

Reviews

Asteria – EP
CD Review by Alan Green

The latest release from a young, ambitious five-piece band out of Crown Point, Indiana who definitely know how to rock.

Random Thoughts

Karen Berger, my “partner in crime” if you will, has just started a blog, called “CreateWorkLive,” which you can find, appropriately enough, at http://www.createworklive.com. In her own words, it’s “a blog about how artists can survive and thrive in the creative economy.”

For those of you who may not know, Karen Berger is one of those folks who wears a number of hats. She’s a writer (thirteen books, the latest of which has been translated into twelve languages if I’m remembering correctly), a pianist and music teacher. And I have the pleasure and honor of sharing my life with her in our home here in the Berkshires.

I bring this up because a lot of the topics that Karen covers in her blog will certainly be of interest to many of you in the Guitar Noise community. There are “big” subjects (health insurance needs for self-employed people, dealing with copyright infringement on the Internet) as well as many snippets that you could easily imagine as topics of conversation around our living room at home, such as performing quirks, personal responsibilities of artists to fellow artists or the history of the word “assist,” which we discussed here on Guitar Noise News not all that long ago.

This latest project of hers, the blog, has had me doing a lot of thinking of my own blog, not to mention the whole Internet thing in general. Because of teaching and other demands on my schedule, I’ve become a bit slack in tending to my own Internet presence and maybe it’s time to work on changing that. But I’m not altogether certain to what end.

I guess that will be a topic for another day!

Until our next newsletter, play well. Play often. Stay safe.

And, as always…

Peace